


memories

by silkspectre



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Past Child Abuse, it’s fluffy and sad huh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29291124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkspectre/pseuds/silkspectre
Summary: ‘’What was real snow like?’’‘’Wet. Cold.’’ Johnny glanced up as well. His usual pissed off expression whenever he saw that damn snow that wasn’t real snow. Maybe if the corporations hadn’t ruined the environment in the first place they wouldn’t have to give them something fake.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/V
Kudos: 40





	memories

**Author's Note:**

> It has started snowing again, honestly I’m just cold all the time now. I have slipper socks and real slippers on, this is no joke. 
> 
> Thanks to real choom Vic!

Once October was over, Night City geared up for the festive season. Holographic billboards touting the newest gifts. Newest implants for your loved ones. A veneer of ‘buy this’ ‘buy that’ heightening to a feverish insanity as ads tried to one-up each other with outlandish imagery and slogans. 

Johnny remembered Christmas a lot differently, thinking of Bible Belt Texan church services where he’d stacked food on a paper plate and peeled off before anyone noticed he didn’t belong there. Of it still being warm enough to sleep on the bed of an abandoned truck, belly full of stolen food and stars still sprawled in the sky. 

‘’I like that memory. That’s a nice one.’’ V laughed after she’d caught it in bed one night, sailing through his head as the radio played some sappy festive song. 

‘’What about Nomad Christmas? Never had one of those.’’ Johnny rolled onto his side so he could look at her. V shrugged, wrinkling her nose up slightly. 

‘’Not many holidays. We’d exchange gifts but that was about it. You’d find some scrap and make something to give to a friend.’’ She thought of a bracelet she’d fashioned out of bits of broken headlight. Used a rock to file them down until they looked like beads, got one of the grizzled mechanics to help her make the holes and bore some string through. 

‘’Your hands. S’why they’re so rough. All that arts n craft shit.’’ Johnny laughed, taking her hand and running his equally calloused thumb over the tips of her fingers. 

‘’Mmm, nobody had soft hands out there.’’ V smiled, watching him for a moment. Her eyes wandered to the window, seeing crystalline fake snow drifting through the night. Arasaka’s ‘gift’ to the masses was a digitised snow show every night. Johnny would usually ask her to shut the curtains when it started. ‘’What was real snow like?’’ 

‘’Wet. Cold.’’ Johnny glanced up as well. His usual pissed off expression whenever he saw that damn snow that wasn’t real snow. Maybe if the corporations hadn’t ruined the environment in the first place they wouldn’t have to give them something fake. ‘’Felt like a dream, somethin’ special. Snow would start and whoever you were walking with, drew them a lil closer.’’ He pulled V closer against him. 

‘’Oh so you used the snow to get laid?’’ V laughed, just holding his hand. From his memories she could imagine the snow hitting her face, remembering how cold it made him feel. The warmth from another person. That warm comforting sensation of being anchored amidst the elements. Their heartbeat.

‘’Mmm, once or twice. Don’t recommend fucking outside during a snowstorm.’’ Johnny cast his mind back to a particular memory, V playfully hitting his arm. ‘’There was one time, when we first started Samurai. Fuckin’ hotels wouldn’t let us stay. No couches to crash on. Had to pile into the van together, and it was fucking cold. That kinda cold that feels like it’s deep in your bones. We got all the clothes we had and put ‘em on. Coats laid out on top, looked a fuckin’ mess. Took turns staying awake and running the engine every now and then. Heating barely fuckin’ worked.’’ 

V shut her eyes, seeing it all through his him as he spoke. The arguing, the laughter, and the still quiet. When Johnny was the one awake at the wheel, trying to get the damn heater working as the snow fell silently. How everything seemed so calm and nobody else in the world might be awake.

‘’And you’ve never seen the real stuff.’’ Johnny moved to light a cigarette, pulling her back to him after. 

‘’No. Long gone by the time I was born. Heard stories about it. But I think you just gave me a pretty good idea of what it was like. Thank you.’’ V rifled through the memories a little more. ‘’What is Easter? They used to give candy?’’ 

‘’Fuckin’ bunnies. It was a religious holiday, couldn’t get any free food from churches over it, though.’’ Johnny tapped his cigarette off to the side. 

‘’Oh, this is a good one.’’ V caught the taste of gummy, sticky-sweet candy. Little hands snatching it from a dingy truck stop. 

‘’Fuck, forgot that one. First time I stole anythin’. Was scared for weeks after that some trucker would bust down the trailer door and demand I return the fuckin’ chocolate bunny I stole.’’ They were both laughing as one of those particular images flashed into mind. A big hulking truck driver sprinting after him, face red and wrench held high in anger. 

‘’How old were you?’’ V had tried to guess, she wasn’t sure. 

‘’Huh. About seven or eight. Still lived with my mom.’’ Johnny thought back to that rundown trailer. His tiny bedroom with scrawled pictures and the wallpaper from when he had been a baby. Blue bears, he’d started drawing on them. Devil horns, a unibrow and moustache. His mom had beaten him for that, even though she damn well knew he was too old for blue bears. 

‘’I’m sorry.’’ V reached up to stroke his cheek, pressing a kiss to the side of his nose. 

‘’S’nothin. Old bitch is gone now. Glad you saw the good stuff.’’ 

‘’More to come.’’ V smiled, pulling him in for a deeper kiss.


End file.
